- Learn more: Customers line up to be among the first at IKEA’s newly opened £450 million Oxford Street flatpack store
For many years, enthusiasts of flat-pack furniture throughout the UK have enthusiastically shared stories of their most recent acquisitions from IKEA, be it aBillybookcaseor aMalmchestofdrawers.
However, it turns out that we have all been misunderstanding it entirely.
CEO Jesper Brodin spoke during Sky News Following the official launch of Flatpack Giants' new £450 million flagship store on Oxford Street.
He quipped, "Feel free to express yourself however you wish, but the correct Swedish pronunciation is actually 'eh-kay-ah'."
I'll mention that the founder established the company at the age of 16. When registering, he hadn’t yet decided on a name for the business. So, they used his initials: Ingvar Kamprad.
'That is "ee" in Swedish, which means "eye" in English. Elmtaryd, the farm where he came from, and Agunnaryd, were both located within the same county.'
'Thus, Ikea represents the individual in question and his origins.'
The pronunciation controversy arises as IKEA unveils its highly anticipated Oxford Street store today.
The £450 million project, which has been postponed twice, is now underway. viewed by store managers and city officials as an essential step toward revitalizing Oxford Street and returning it to its status as one of the globe’s leading shopping hubs.
The establishment has taken over the previous Topshop location in the city center to launch a three-story store offering approximately 6,000 items. Customers can take home up to 3,500 of these products right away, with the remaining ones available through options like home delivery, click-and-collect, or pickup at designated lockers and locations.
Images from the launch event depict team members wearing yellow and blue shirts, enthusiastically waving the flags of the UK and Sweden to welcome shoppers as they enter.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan was present to cut the ribbon and formally inaugurate the shop’s opening day. He greeted employees with a smile, standing amidst a sea of balloons.
Nevertheless, there has been considerable doubt regarding how customers will manage to carry their purchases back home due to the lack of parking facilities.
Therefore, you must be capable of transporting your purchases — this implies that the 3500 products available in the store should each weigh under 15 kg and not exceed 150 cm in length.
This marks the second UK high street outlet for the firm—the initial one launched in Hammersmith back in 2022—and the company sees this as a significant step toward implementing their plan to broaden their footprint in urban areas through more compact stores, thereby making them easier for consumers to access.
A new downtown location in central Brighton is scheduled to launch this summer, succeeded by three additional smaller outlets in Chester, Harlow, and Norwich later this year.
The firm mentioned that it has particular focuses in regions such as London, the Midlands, and the North West, although it cannot announce any new sites at this time.
Ingvar Feodor Kamprad was born on March 30, 1926, in PjATTERYD, Sweden, to parents who were simple farmers.
Despite his dyslexia, he possessed an exceptional intellect and, at just five years old, had already shown early signs of being a prodigious entrepreneur. He sold matchboxes, Christmas cards, pens, wall hangings, and berries he had gathered from the woods.
When he was only 16 years old, he started IKEA by utilizing funds provided by his father as an incentive for putting in great effort, particularly since he had dyslexia, to get everything registered properly.
Before long, he started placing ads in newspapers, selling furniture through mail orders and delivering it to the station via the milk cart.
In 1953, he owned a showroom, yet in 1956, after witnessing deliverymen remove a table's legs to facilitate transportation, he experienced an epiphany about flat packaging, which transformed everything.
IKEA experienced rapid growth similar to a skyrocket taking flight. Concurrently, his initial marriage to Kerstin Wadling collapsed after a decade and, in 1963, he wedded Margaretha Sennert. Together they had three sons: Peter, Jonas, and Mathias.
By the Sixties there were Ikeas all over Scandinavia. When rivals tried to organise a boycott by his suppliers, he moved to Poland for materials and manufacturers and cut costs further.
Following this, the Ikea revolution could not be halted. The initial United States location—situated close to Philadelphia—was inaugurated in 1986. One year thereafter, the inaugural British outlet opened its doors in Warrington (as of late 2018, there will be 22 outlets across the UK). Subsequently, locations were established in both Russia and China.
So the next time you're shopping for flat-pack furniture or grabbing a new lamp, keep in mind: it's Ee-kay-uh!
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